The Cleveland Browns were going to have the ball on 1st down in the red zone with under two minutes left. They needed a touchdown to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers and avoid being only the second winless team in NFL history. All they needed was for Corey Coleman to catch a perfectly thrown ball with nobody close to him. The ball went right through his hands. Even the announcer said he’d caught it before noticing the ball bouncing around on the field.
Thus ended the Browns’ worst season in their history, the worst season possible in a league that only has 16 games per season before the playoffs.
I haven’t covered the NFL this year, nor have I watched a single game. I only saw this because it hit the front page of Google News. Despite my boycott, I had to watch the replay of the drop. It didn’t disappoint.
It represented the perfect ending for the Browns’ season as well as for the current state of the NFL. They can’t seem to get the ball to stay in their hands. They can’t seem to score points when they need them. They are oblivious to what’s happening in the minds of their fans and former fans.
I’ve ranted enough about the NFL. Here’s my latest that tells why they’re having so many woes:

The National Football League has an image problem. While most are pointing to the unpatriotic kneelers who are disrespecting everything about America when they take a knee during the National Anthem as the cause of the league’s woes, it’s not. They were the trigger point, but this could have been handled early on had the league responded properly.

What response would have been proper? Rather than acting like deer caught in the headlights, they should have come out strongly by declaring this is the fans’ league. While some freedom of speech activists on the right and social justice warriors on the left may have loudly balked, the general fan base would have appreciated the sentiment. All the league had to do is say something like this: